Encounter Design needs to be overhauled at a fundamental level

[Billythepancake]

They could make it like other mmos where bosses do so much damage to the tanks and raid that healers do not have enough time to do anything but heal.

Dear god please no. The healing mechanics are not interesting enough for this design. Spamming succor doesn't sound anymore interesting than spamming broil.

[AdamFyi]

They could make it like other mmos where bosses do so much damage to the tanks and raid that healers do not have enough time to do anything but heal.

As mentioned earlier, this fundamentally cannot work without a major overhaul to the battle system. Healing spells currently eat up way too much MP to be able to sustain constant healing. You will go OOM within a couple of minutes. Lowering MP costs won’t solve this either because all it’ll accomplish is breaking balance for older content (like the Ultimates) by giving healers massive MP sustain. Plus, spamming your healing buttons sounds boring imo.

[Ultimatecalibur]

As mentioned earlier, this fundamentally cannot work without a major overhaul to the battle system. Healing spells currently eat up way too much MP to be able to sustain constant healing. You will go OOM within a couple of minutes. Lowering MP costs won’t solve this either because all it’ll accomplish is breaking balance for older content (like the Ultimates) by giving healers massive MP sustain. Plus, spamming your healing buttons sounds boring imo.

Only if you are constantly spamming your expensive "big" heals and have next to no Piety (which increases how much MP you regen every tick). Think about how often a WHM casts Cure 2 (1000 MP for 700 potency) and then continues blasting rather than just casting 2 Cures (400 MP for 450 potency each). Each casting of Cure actually has a 15% chance of making the next Cure 2 free so that could be 1150 potency for 400 MP over 2 gcds.

[Shurrikhan]

Dear god please no. The healing mechanics are not interesting enough for this design. Spamming succor doesn't sound anymore interesting than spamming broil.

This. Gameplay remains dull so long as there is a marginal output to be used per a certain condition/opportunity and all else (the majority of gameplay) feels like it's just there to fill downtime. It doesn't matter which is that downtime.

[SamRF]

At the very least, tanks should get way more damage imo to the point that you will consider using Cure I. Alternating between Cure II and Cure I for MP management sounds way more interesting than spamming Glare (same goes for equivalent abilities of the other healers).

[Shurrikhan]

At the very least, tanks should get way more damage imo to the point that you will consider using Cure I. Alternating between Cure II and Cure I for MP management sounds way more interesting than spamming Glare (same goes for equivalent abilities of the other healers).

Unless the damage rates are minor and target-specific enough to really allow for Cure I, this will just as likely force occasional complete downtime (e.g. no Glare-spam) to conserve mana for Cure II when such is actually necessary, especially for the less confident players.

[SamRF]

Unless the damage rates are minor and target-specific enough to really allow for Cure I, this will just as likely force occasional complete downtime (e.g. no Glare-spam) to conserve mana for Cure II when such is actually necessary, especially for the less confident players.

That's alright imo. It would make the role feel more rewarding when you get competent at it and know fights, cause right now the role seems to get more boring as you get better.

Unless I'm mistaken on the METa, in this particular case of increased single target incoming damage, having to go into complete downtime to conserve mana would mean that you didn't use Cure I appropiately.

This adds another mechanic to healers which they imo need with how much time you spend doing basically nothing requiring bandwidth (spamming 1 dps ability).

[AdamFyi]

Snip

If you were forced to constantly spam your Base healing spell to keep people alive, then there is legit not enough damage going out to even warrant spamming healing gcds. Just let your ogcds take care of it.

[Shurrikhan]

Unless I'm mistaken on the META, in this particular case of increased single target incoming damage, having to go into complete downtime to conserve mana would mean that you didn't use Cure I appropriately.

As I said, it'd just require that the damage is dealt to particular targets; else AoE heals would simply become more MP-efficient than it and anything demanding enough to require AoEs to be spammed would simply make offensive spells too costly to use past a certain margin in case of emergencies, especially, again, for less confident players.

So long as the damage rate is low enough and its targets focused enough, then I think that'd be a good thing. We just can't merely raise damage intake and expect Cure I to suddenly see use. The increase needs to be applied in a way that Cure I would be particularly allowed for.

[Liam_Harper]

At the very least, tanks should get way more damage imo to the point that you will consider using Cure I. Alternating between Cure II and Cure I for MP management sounds way more interesting than spamming Glare (same goes for equivalent abilities of the other healers).

If they take way more damage, we won't consider Cure because Cure II is much higher potency per GcD. Spamming little heals on a tank taking huge chunks of damage means a dead tank. You see this in dungeons when inexperienced healers try to Cure spam a tank on big pulls.
Cure isn't even a terrible ability, it gives you a weave window, good potency per MP and a decent proc. We just don't need GcD ST heals.

Another thing I haven't seen mentioned much, more than oGcD's, is how op AoE healing is. A Medica II in terms of potency is like casting Cure II on the entire party for a fraction more mana than a single cast, never mind buffing it up with Temp or Plenary on top. Raidwides, several people making mistakes, even aoe markers should be some threat, but 2 healers can have the entire party from 20% to full in 1-2 GcD's and are back to spamming their one dps button. If I had to target something in the toolkit, I'd look there first.